The Tortoise and the Hare

Aesop’s fable of the Tortoise and the Hare is potentially a no brianer.  Most money would have been on the Hare.  He had everything going for him.  Speed and ability.  Really it was a case of “turn up and do your stuff and everything points to you winning.”
The poor old tortoise only had one thing.  It was not speed.  I remember in the movie “Flushed Away” the snails said “run away, run away.”  The next shot showed them running away, and there was hardly any perceptible movement.  The tortoise to me was a bit like that.  He was not built for speed, but he was built for something else that mattered more in this case.  Endurance.
To me the Hare had everything but what mattered most.  He had heaps of talent.  Talent to spare.  The result should have been a foregone conclusion.  I am all for people who have everything including what matters most.  They can achieve heaps.  I don’t believe anyone is ever a one man show though.  If they try to be, they will come a cropper.  But if they accept help along the way, there is seemingly no limit to what they can achieve.
Reminds me of heaps. “hasten slowly” “more haste, less speed” or as Bob Dylan sang “took an untrodden path once, where the swift don’t win the race…” 
I just read something that I agree with.  He was saying that the moral of the story was more about the Hare than the Tortoise.  He made the point that the only hope someone who is slower has of expecting to win, is that their opposition defeats themselves.  That is sort of my philosophy in table tennis.  Just get the ball back.  Maybe they will make the mistake.  Ok sometimes I get killed.  Other times it works.
To me, fast is good if it is combined with staying power.  There is no doubt top table tennis players have more shots, but what I think they have that lower divisions have less of, is consistency.  Lower division players see a ball to be killed and boy do they go in for the kill.  There is nothing wrong with that, except for them it is less about having formed a right habit, and more about an opportunity.
I reckon opportunities are everywhere.  But if I have not learned the right habits then I will fail to make the most of them.  It is where the tortoise comes in.  Personally, I would rather do one thing well then ten things badly.  Actually, I would rather do ten things well, but I have seen it too often and I have been one of them, where chances are let slip.
I have had some wins and that keeps me going.  I found that so pertinent in golf.  I could have a shocker but that is not what I remembered.  I remembered the shot where everything worked. 
I have squandered opportunities, but I am learning.  And as they say, better late than never.